Community Service

The Bearcat football program involves itself in various community service projects for many reasons:

to give back to the local community
to gain publicity and support for our football program and University
to invoke a duty of citizenship in our student-athletes
to assist our student-athletes in networking with local businesses for future employment opportunities.

Blood Drive

On Feburary 4th, 54 SBU football players gave blood at the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks blood drive, hosted at SBU. Thanks in part to the help of the players, the blood drive was one of the most successful drives at SBU in history.

"As a team, we talk about the importance of community and doing what you can to help," said head coach Keith Allen. "After the ice storms last week, we saw that the Community Blood Center was down about 1,000 or so units of blood, so we asked the team to give blood for the community."

SBU quarterback Steve Gachette was one of the players who donated. "This was my first time giving blood. You never think about where the blood goes, or who gets it until it might be a family member or yourself that one day needs it. A few days ago, my mother was rushed to the hospital and needed a blood transfusion; the person that donated that blood saved her life. I'm happy that 54 players gave blood today, because we might have just saved 54 lives."

SBU Big Cat Little Cat

The SBU football team is involved with local elementary age school children with reading skills and teaching them the importance of an education. The team visits different schools each Friday morning to assist the teachers with anything that they need; reading, show and tell, playing, etc.

This is a way for the Bearcats to give back to the community in which they live. This program will allow our student athletes to interact with school children throughout the school year. Our student-athletes will be positive role models and hopefully leave the children with the desire to be a future collegiate athlete and Bearcat fans for life.

For more information, contact coach Zach Wilkerson at zwilkerson@sbuniv.edu

New Student Move-In Day

The SBU football team helped move in the newcomers to SBU in August of the last several years.

Rotary Club Park

Members of the SBU football team volunteered some of their free time over the Easter holiday to give back to the community of Bolivar. Saturday morning at 7:30 am (and 21 degrees) members of the team went to the site of the Rotary John Playter Park to help clean and pick up the park with the Rotary Club of Bolivar. The football team later returned to the site to help ensure that the park was ready for its opening.

Other Community Service Opportunities

Other community service projects may present themselves and our program will try to take advantage of them (such as blood drives, highway clean-up). If you are interested in the Bearcat football team helping with your service project, please e-mail a request to head coach Keith Allen at kallen@sbuniv.edu.